Follow PR Daily on:

Oreo’s parent company gets into the online prank business

From the “stick to your core competencies” file comes a new app called Prankstr. Mondelez, the company that makes Oreo cookies and Ritz crackers (among many other snacks) is the brains behind the idea.

Here’s how it works: Sign up on the Prankstr app, and it will send out fake tweets to your followers. Provided that your followers reply with disbelief, the company creates a video that features their astonishment with the announcement to the world that they got pranked.

As Digiday points out, the app “is one of two new startups recently founded within megabrand Mondelez’s walls. Last year, the snack company … launched an entrepreneurial training program and startup incubator ‘Mobile Futures.’”

Prankstr joins Betabox as the first projects to come from Mondelez’ partnership with venture-development firm Prehype.

Betabox, which deals in snack samples, is a bit more on-brand for the company.

More from Digiday:

For the time being, three members from Mondelez, and three members from Prehype work on Prankstr, while another two from both companies work on Betabox. Currently, Mondelez employees dedicate one day a week (about 20 percent) of their time to working on the startups.

Seems like a strange allocation of resources to me. Maybe Mondelez should remain devoted to churning out masterpieces such as cookie dough Oreos.